The Consumer Electronics Assocation (CEA) announced that Ecovent, maker of wireless vents and sensors for home climate control, will be receiving the Automation Device of the Year award. CEA is the group behind the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which has been running all week in Las Vegas, NV.

Ecovent is a DIY upgrade to existing home heating and cooling systems and falls under that hot new category of smart devices in the Internet of Things (IoT). Founder and CEO Dipul Patel, had some gracious words when accepting the award: “To have the industry authority in consumer electronics recognize our product, and the technology and design that goes into it, is particularly gratifying because there is no other organization that has the deep knowledge and insight on the best products and services for the home and ultimately, the consumer.”Read more

As CES 2015 kicks into gear, companies will be throwing out press releases like Mardi Gras beads in order to draw attention to their products they plan on demoing at the show. One company, Round Concept LLC, has announced a rather interesting device that will be a side attachment to your Google spectacles. The purpose you ask? To give you thermal vision, brought straight to your Google Glasses’ visual overlay.

The attachment is called Third Eye, and the product will appear at Round Concept’s booth during the CES event. For more articles about the electronics show, click here for our full coverage of CES 2015 throughout the week. For further reading about Third Eye, click the “Read More” link below. Read more

In the tech world, like physics, there seems to be a quest for unification. One, ultimate, idea that encompasses all other ideas. This hunt manifests itself in the constant debate about the size of smart devices. Whether consumers would be happy with something the size of a phablet and only own one device or would people rather have something that fits better in the hand and also own a tablet? (This generalization assumes that many would not see the utility in owning both a phablet and a tablet.)

Nano Magnetics Ltd has now begun working on the development of a device that straddles the middle-ground of this discussion. It’s introducing the concept of possessing multiple small devices that can turn into a larger, connected device.

Thanks to a new application designed and coded by TeamAndIRC, a loyal member of the XDA Developer forums, Android users can now automatically unlock the bootloader on a bunch of Motorola and HTC branded smartphones from 2013.

Getting started is super easy. All you have to do is visit the download thread over on XDA, pay the service registration fee of $25 (which will be refunded if it does not work), install the Sunshine Bootloader Unlock on your device, and open it up. Then hit the start button and watch your bootloader unlock right in front of your eyes.

Amazon has packed a lot of cool new features into their Fire Phone, but apparently this has come at the cost of repairability. The fine folks over at iFixit have done their traditional teardown of Amazon’s first foray into smartphones and its not looking good, earning a repairability score of 3 out of 10 (with 10 being the easiest to repair). Everything starts out simple enough with the use of standard screws and the lack of adhesive holding the casing together, but once you get inside, things get a bit more tricky.

When you inevitably drop your precious LG G3 and break its screen the week after you get it, don’t fret.

According to the folks at UBreakIFix, it isn’t the end of the world.

The team completed a tear-down of the Korean variant of the device and found that the LG G3 is incredibly simple to take apart and repair. You only need to take out 14 screws after prying off the plastic casing, and all the components are attached to a single board.

Home automation is still a hot topic amongst mobile enthusiasts and this year’s CES 2014 has no shortage of such technologies. The latest startup to flag the industry’s radar is Flyover Innovations, a small group of gents from Lenexa Kansas looking to bring the world its flavor of home theater and streaming control. At CES 2014 the company has introduced their latest product dubbed “Blumoo”. Blumoo is a small hardware platform offering the ability to connect any home theater system allowing you to stream your media from your mobile device. The company and their product aim to rid of the traditional “dock” believing that mobile devices should be just that, mobile. Blumoo offers an open source API so the company is hoping other developers will get on board as well. What’s nice about Blumoo is the limited amount of hardware required. You’re in essence using your existing audio equipment. Read more

I can hear it already, GIMMICK! Well, call it what you will, we still give LG some credit for the innovation. And if you’re anything like me and can’t stand to see a single scratch on your device (mostly because I know I’m going to resell it and get a new one) then this just might be your thing. At CES 2014 LG unveiled the G Flex’s back cover self healing capabilities thanks to its special coating which expands the material again after applying a little heat. Check out the video below of the demonstrator applying a little heat from the palms of his hands completely healing the deliberately applied scratches. Head here to check out the rest of our coverage of CES 2014 and feel free to let us know what your new favorite gadget is. Read more

Hey, who doesn’t love a good discount nowadays? Well, you’re in luck. The MotoMaker Moto X has now dropped to a mere $479.99 for a no-contract version of the handset. If you want to own your device right out, we think this is a pretty fair price to go the hassle-free route of not being locked into a carrier. The original drop to $99 for the on-contract device is still available should you want to go the subsidized route. However, at this time the offer for the non-contract device only extends to the AT&T version through the MotoMaker site. The off-contract price is good for the 16GB model while the 32GB will run you $529.99. Stay tuned as we’ll keep an eye out should the offer extend to T-Mobile customers which would be ideal since the device is currently a whopping $599.99 for a 16GB (Dev Edition $649.99/32GB). It would probably be in Magenta’s best interest to get the ball rolling on a price drop to take advantage of the upcoming holidays. Feel free to let us know what you think in the comments below.